I was the last one seen at the rhyme scene.
Inkless pens lay on the ground like spent shells.
The blue lines on the page
tilted sideways become a cage
and lines from my pen begin to stray.
Outside the margin, I hear the dogs barkin'.
I can't see the sky, the walls are gray.
I can't tell if it's night, but I'll be okay.
If they take my pens, I'll use shards.
My story will be written in my scars.
I can't be stopped, not even by the guards.
I can't sleep, I can't even blink.
Then I woke in a pool of my own ink.
I'm locked down in a cellblock,
but I can't stop, won't stop.
I pay my penances by serving sentences.
I woke from a dream last night.
I had wings destined for flight
but I couldn't fly, high in the sky
In a fit of rage, I thrashed about the cage.
My only escape would be on the page.
I plucked quills form my wings,
shanked my inner demons for ink,
used their skin for paper,
and bound my books with their spines,
chronicling my life and times in rhymes.
I can't tell if I am in a prison or a zoo.
Are these bars for me, or are they for you?
This isn't HBO, and this is not Oz.
I'm not sure which words are mine,
or which words are God's.
My mail is read, my phone is tapped,
but my truth refuses to be trapped.
Before I slung nouns and verbs from curbs
at the corner of Depression and Redemption.
Locked up but still pushing keys.
Not the yayo, but on a laptop.
My chapbook will come out in a ziplock.
I'm only as free as my pen will let me be.
No guards with silencers will ever silence me.